DCL$PATH Caveat

Specifying an asterisk (“*”) at the DCL prompt, or an invalid specification which results in DCL seeing an asterisk or other wildcard specification, can produce undesirable results:

$ *

$ dirdisk:*.txt%DCL-W-NOLBLS, label ignored - use only within command procedures . . .

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There is an aspect of DCL$PATH of which you need to be aware:

DCL will observe wildcard specifications when seeking a file by way of DCL$PATH. This can produce undesired results.

Even an invalid specification might be interpreted as a wildcard specification. The second example shows what can happen if a space is left out of a DIRECTORY command.